Re: hangs/multiple servers

Tony Johnson ([email protected])
Wed, 18 Nov 1992 18:51 PDT


>I've noticed occasionally that trying to contact an http server that
>seems to be down (at least with ViolaWWW & MidasWWW) will result in
>hangs (or very very long pauses). Shouldn't a 30-second timeout or
>something similar be in effect at all times?

The way I would like MidasWWW to work is that it would try to connect for about
2 seconds, after which a dialog box would pop up looking something like:

------------------------------------
| Connecting to XXX.XXX.XXX... |
| |
| ----------- |
| | Abort! | |
------------------------------------

Where you click on abort if you get tired of waiting.

Only problem is that I don't know how to achieve this, since the Unix "connect"
routine I use to connect to the remote server is synchronous. If anyone has
an example of a portable way to asnychronously connect over TCPIP I would be
happy to incoportate it. (In fact I don't even know how to set the timeout
period).

>Also, is there any way to specify backup servers? Does anyone else
>think this would be useful?

Yes this would be very useful, especially for the "master indexes" such as
"academic information" at CERN. Probably not so easy to provide though...

Tony